President Joe Biden has tripped and fallen on several occasions and countless more near-spills during his tenure as president, and those incidents greatly reinforce the view shared by most Americans that Biden is too old and too physically and mentally frail to serve effectively in his role.
Biden's falls and near-spills are a nightmare for him and his campaign, and it was recently revealed that the White House and the Biden campaign are taking precautions to limit more such occurrences in public, according to Breitbart.
The White House immediately mocked and dismissed the report as untrue, and yet, just hours after it was published, Biden once again slipped and nearly fell down the stairs of Air Force One on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning, Axios reported that one of Team Biden's top priorities was its secretive "don't-let-him-trip mission," as the president's prior spills -- including tripping over a sandbag on stage at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony -- are embarrassing and unhelpful to his re-election bid.
Some of the precautions taken include Biden working on his balance with a physical therapist over the past couple of years, using a shorter set of stairs to enter and exit from a lower level of Air Force One, and the president wearing sneakers instead of dress shoes with his suits and ties.
"Democrats, including some in the administration, are terrified that Biden will have a bad fall -- with a nightmare scenario of it happening in the weeks before the November 2024 election," Axios reported. "Some senior Democrats privately have been frustrated with Biden's advance team for months, citing the sandbag incident and noting that the president often appears not to know which direction to go after he speaks at a podium."
Viral video clips of such instances -- Biden falling or looking lost on stage -- are bad for Biden in that they both provide ammo for Republican attacks against him and further confirm the prevailing public sentiment, as documented in virtually all of the polls now, that Biden is too old and too physically and mentally unfit to be the president.
Following the release of that report from Axios, The Hill reported that members of President Biden's White House and campaign teams swiftly pushed back against, albeit with bitter sarcasm that focused solely on the sneakers revelation and otherwise conveniently ignored the broader point of the piece about Biden's advanced age and increasingly obvious frailty.
Some likened the Biden's sneakers news to former President Barack Obama's "tan suit" controversy -- the absurd assertion from some Democrats and media pundits that the only real "scandal" during Obama's presidency was the time he wore a tan-colored suit -- or pointed out the growing trend in Congress and elsewhere of people preferring the comfort of sneakers over dress shoes even while otherwise garbed in a suit or professional attire.
Yet, while Team Biden mockingly dismissed the Axios report, the very reason it was written and published was very nearly realized just hours later, according to Fox News.
Biden, who had just arrived in Detroit, Michigan to briefly stand in a picket line in solidarity with striking union auto workers, almost fell down even the shorter set of stairs while descending from Air Force One to the tarmac.
He reportedly made it about halfway down those short stairs when he suddenly slipped but nonetheless managed to catch himself and retain his balance as he continued down the steps.
The White House and Biden campaign can crack sarcastic jokes and smugly dismiss the valid concerns of most Americans about the president's age and health status, but that doesn't change the fact those are legitimate and real worries for many people.
Indeed, it was just last month that an AP-NORC poll found that 77% of all Americans -- including 69% of Democrats -- thought Biden was "too old" to serve another four years, while a CNN poll earlier this month found that around three-quarters of all Americans are "seriously concerned" about the president's physical health and "mental competence" and his ability to effectively serve a second term.
